"Each of you will have the chance to make your own discovery in the years to come. And I say “chance” because you won’t have to take it. There’s no community service requirement in the real world; no one forcing you to care. You can take your diploma, walk off this stage, and chase only after the big house and the nice suits and all the other things that our money culture says you should buy. You can choose to narrow your concerns and live your life in a way that tries to keep your story separate from America’s.But I hope you don’t. Not because you have an obligation to those who are less fortunate, though you do have that obligation. Not because you have a debt to all those who helped you get here, though you do have that debt.It’s because you have an obligation to yourself. Because our individual salvation depends on collective salvation. Because thinking only about yourself, fulfilling your immediate wants and needs, betrays a poverty of ambition. Because it’s only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential and discover the role you’ll play in writing the next great chapter in America’s story." Candidate Obama said this in a 2008 commencement address to Wesleyan University.
Sort of gave myself an ultimatum. No longer was I going to hole-up.... Not because of my health, not because of my body, not because of any other insecurities that rob me of moments truly worth living. And I haven't. And August was one of the best months in my 49 years of life. And though sunflowers have always been for me been one of God's greatest creations, seeing a field of miles and miles of them in northern Michigan this summer brought me back to the symbol they have always stood for to me and this simple phrase of words "face the Son".... my new mantra.